XMCLIPBOARDINQUIRELENGTH(3)

💖 XmClipboardInquireLength 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because today we're looking at XmClipboardInquireLength — a library call from the Motif/Xm clipboard family, living its best life in section 3 of the manual. She's the friend who just quietly tells you how much stuff is on the clipboard. Not the whole thing. Just the length. Lowkey iconic. ✨

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🎀 NAME 🎀

XmClipboardInquireLength — a clipboard function that returns the length of the stored data. That's it, that's the job, no cap. 💅

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

#include <Xm/CutPaste.h>
int XmClipboardInquireLength (display, window, format_name, length)
        Display * display;
        Window  window;
        char    * format_name;
        unsigned long   * length;
(void)

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the vibe: XmClipboardInquireLength hands you back the length of the data stored under a specific format name for the clipboard data item. That's the whole personality. 🫶

and listen — if there's no data for the format you asked about, or if there's literally no item on the clipboard at all, this function gives you a big fat 0 (zero) in the length argument. Empty. Nothing. Nada. 😭

also important bestie: any format you pass by name is assumed to have its length passed in a call to XmClipboardCopy, even if the data hasn't actually been transferred to the clipboard in that format yet. So it's giving "trust me, the length is coming" energy. 💀

and now the arguments, one by one, let's go:

• display — a pointer to the Display structure that you got back from a previous call to XOpenDisplay or XtDisplay. You know, the classic. 🖥️
• window — the window ID of a widget that relates your application window to the clipboard. You can snag the widget's window ID through XtWindow. And fr fr, the same application instance should pass the same window ID to each of the clipboard functions it calls. Consistency is the moment. 👑
• format_name — the name of the format for the data item. Just the name, bestie.
• length — the length of the next data item in the specified format. This one equals 0 (zero) if no data is found for the specified format, or if there's no item on the clipboard. Zero. Empty. We've been here. 🍓

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✨ RETURN ✨

here's what she can come back with:

• XmClipboardSuccess — slay, the function was successful. 🎉
• XmClipboardLocked — the function failed because the clipboard was locked by another application. Rude. But you can keep calling the function again with the same parameters until the lock goes away — that way your app has the opportunity to ask the user if they wanna keep trying or just give up on the operation. Respect the user's choices, periodt. 💅
• XmClipboardNoData — the function couldn't find data on the clipboard matching the format you requested. This could happen because:
  1. the clipboard is empty,
  2. there is data on the clipboard, but not in the requested format, or
  3. the data in the requested format was passed by name and is no longer available. 🙈

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💜 RELATED 💜

go read these next, they're the besties of this page:

• XmClipboardCopy(3)
• XmClipboardStartCopy(3)

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and that's the whole page, bestie! 💖 this was the XmClipboardInquireLength(library call) manual page — a library call in section 3, so you already know where to find her again. now go forth and inquire those lengths. 🌈✨🎀